The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-21

and Baltimore. Smith had taken the con-
tract to lay the pipe under ground at 500
per mile. The ditch must be two feet deep:
the pipe must be well covered. He wanted
two machines, one to excavate and the other
TO fill up the trench.
Cornell at once sketched rough diagram
of machine that he thought would an
swer; one machine, not two. It was some
thing like a plow; it was to be drawn by
horses, and would lay the pipe and cover it
as 1t moved along. Smith was not easily
convinced that it would work, and much
| time was spent in discussing it.
well go to work and make machine"
said Smith, at last ''If it is successful |
Will pay you $50 or 500, or any reasonable
price,
Cornell went into shop and made his
machine Smith wrote to Prof. Morse to
come up and see if it was a success. The
trial was made on farm with four yoke of
oxen, strong CAD and a clumsy driver
but the machine was perfect success, and
so Cornell agreed to go to Baltimore with it
and ''lay pipe" for the new telegraph on the
line of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad.
The story of that pipe-laying and the
ultimate future of the underground scheme
when 1923, 200 of the appropriation had been
spent is one of the amusing pathetic pages
in the history of pioneer telegraphy. There
was blunder made in casting the pipe,
which was discovered and reported at the
outset by Cornell, but his advice was I'M
needed by the scientists of the project. He
knew that the insulation was defective, and
that failure was sure. So he was not sur
prised when ten miles had been laid to see
Prof. Morse coming towards him one day
with an anxious face.
Cornell" said he, taking the engineer
aside, you must contrive to stop work for
few days, so that the papers will not know
why it was interrupted. / must make some
experiments before any more pipe is laid y
Cornell stepped back to his machine,
"Hurrah, boys! Whip up your mules We
must lay another length before we quit to-
night" And grasping the handles of the
pillow, he managed, when the teamsters
cracked their whips, to cant it over, so as
to catch into point of rock, wrecking it
completely. That meant stay OF proceed
ings for week, at least.
The well-known quarrel between Morse
and F. o. ]. Smith grew out of this failure
of pipe telegraph. Smith considered it a
failure of the magnetic telegraph; Morse of
system of construction only. Cornells
practical knowledge of mechanics proved to
the satisfaction of Prof. Morse that the
wires could be- reinsulated at small expense
Cornell was appointed mechanical assistant
of the magnetic telegraph by the Secretary
Of the Treasury, and went to work in the
basement of the Patent Office. He studied
the subject of electrical science in the mean
time, and wrote in his "reminiscences:
''While pressed on with removing the
wires from the pipes, l did not hasten the
reinsulation, as | was confident the order
would soon come to erect the wires on
poles"
Ezra Cornell accumulated the nucleus of
his fortune by building telegraph lines. He
engaged to build the section between Fort
Lee and Philadelphia. in 1916, for 81 600,
demonstrating his faith in the project by
subscribing $500 for the line. He made
$4,000 out of his contract for the ''New
York, Albany and Buffalo" and that, with
other transactions, gave him his nest-egg
for investment in the Western Union In
1857. Cornell gave.the great monopoly its
nance and Hiram Sibley was undoubtedly
the maker of his fortune. 1t is fitting that
their names should be united in the univer.
sity whose fundamental idea is education in
the mechanic arts. Ezra Cornell's fnan
cial affairs were by no means sound wher
| $4,000 in Western Union stock was ad.
judged to him in 1857, by Hiram Sibley
which in 1865, required the issue of nearly
| 81, 900, 900